RICHMOND, KENTUCKY (AP) – A facility built to dispose of deadly Cold War-era chemical weapons is nearing the end of its mission to destroy its 520-tonne stockpile, a milestone that will likely mark the end of chemical weapons destruction projects in the United States (US), officials said on Wednesday.
The facility at the Blue Grass Army Depot, Kentucky is weeks away from eliminating the last of a stockpile of 51,000 M55 rockets with GB nerve agent that have been stored at the depot since the 1940s. The GB nerve agent, also known as sarin, a colourless and tasteless toxin, can cause respiratory failure leading to death. It is outlawed under international rules of warfare.
Another stockpile is being eliminated at an Army facility in Colorado, but that effort is expected to conclude before the Kentucky one.The two sites have the country’s last remaining chemical weapons that must be disposed of according to a 1997 worldwide treaty.
Military and civilian officials gathered on Wednesday at Eastern Kentucky University to speak about the end of the project.
Assistant US Secretary of Defence for Threat Reduction and Arms Control Kingston Reif, said the destruction of the nation’s deadly chemical weapons has been “decades in the making”.
